Two girls, one blog

Did You Turn Off the Stove?

Napster came to visit this weekend. She drove a total of 6 hours for a visit of less than 24 hours. But I enjoyed every minute of it.

As we were leaving my house to attend the estrogen fest, Napster did a quick check to be sure everything was secure and turned off.

Napster: Back door locked?

Sissy: Yep

Napster: Everything off?

Sissy: Yep

Napster: Stove off?

Sissy: Haha, I would have to use the stove to worry about it being off

Let me preface this with the fact that I have only gotten a total of 16 hours of sleep in the past 4 days. So, I might not be thinking as clearly as usual. My actions seem to be without much thought or concentration.

This morning, I decided to fix a little breakfast. That would have been around 8:30 am. Eggs, turkey bacon and toast. I left the house a little before 1pm to go get a pedicure. Came back and was able to doze off for an hour. Around 4:30 I ran to the store for some sprite to settle my tummy. I returned livejasmin home and went into the kitchen to pour the sprite and noticed it was extremely hot in there, but the heater wasn't on. I looked over at the stove to see the light on it and the burner on. Along with that, the bread bag was left open as well as well as the OJ left out. I may not use the stove much, but I certainly never leave food out.

Once I was through scolding myself, I laughed as I remembered Napster's question as to whether the stove was off. Perhaps I shouldn't have laughed at her!

Personal Music History

I started Piano Lessons last Thursday. A woman that mainly teaches young children but has a few young adults.

We were trying to decide what book I should be in with my previous knowledge. I thought I'd still be in book one since it's been so long.

She pulled out book one and made me play through each song. I got through all of them. And while sight reading (I've never been the best at sight reading).

We decided that next week I would start in book 2, that there was no reason for me to use book 1.

Well, I hate to break it to the lady, but I'm going to have to quit piano lessons after 1 lesson. I feel bad. She's a sweet old lady and this is her source of income.And I'm sure it's great to have someone that's not a jasminlive beginner for her to work with.

Here's my reasoning. I think I'm at the point where I don't need her at this point in time. I need to start taking lessons when I get stuck and can't teach myself.

I've been pretty good at teaching myself music. I started off playing the clarinet in 6th grade and stayed 1st chair up until college. I got bored with clarinet often so tried other things. In 7th grade, my director had an old bassoon, barely in working order. I begged him to let me try it. I took it home, bought a book, and taught myself the fingerings. I fixed some of the things wrong with it (the felt pads, cleaning, some of the screws) and was able to play bassoon for the next few years and was even asked to play in a local community band. (Bands always need bassoon players...they are hard to find).

Then, my sophomore year in high school, I was a member of the concert band, marching band and jazz band. We had absolutely know baritone players. We had 1 tuba, 1 trombone, and the rest were trumpets and woodwinds. So, I took the baritone home, tried a few finger positions, played a note on my keyboard to match it...and wrote down the fingering and note when I figured it out. No book, no instructor...just me, the baritone and the keyboard.

It took me 3 weeks to learn the baritone enough to play the music for our Homecoming Game. That summer, I went to Europe with the Spirit of America National Honor Band...playing the baritone, with less than a year live sex chat experience under my belt in the instrument.

I've fiddled around with other instruments. Oboe, Soprano Sax, Trombone, Alto Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, and some percussion (my favorite being the Timpani).

I took Piano lessons for 8 months about 10 years ago. I can still play my major scales and my chord progressions...after all this time. I took a piano class for a semester my first year in college. I didn't like it. I actually got a C....go figure!

So, I've come to the conclusion that I can save the $25 a lesson and continue to teach myself.

Now I have to figure out how to break it to the instructor. Why does she have to be a sweet old lady?

Mute Button!

I was looking forward to 4th of July weekend. I was looking forward to a 2 hour drive to see my family.

I'm still going although it's taking every piece of me to go. I'm coming back early so I don't say something I shouldn't.

Sometimes I wish there was a mute button I could use to keep from people pissing me off.

Work Injuries

I sometimes think that I think I'm superwoman. I tend to try things and think I'll be okay...I'll be the exception. At my mom's house, I pulled a plug that was outside that happened to be a HUGE fuse for the air conditioner and according to my uncle I could have been spending my next month in the hospital. Luckily the power was off to the house. Then there was last nights experience with me on the laptop in the storm (I know, stupid!)

I was extra careful today when I was messing with the wires for my XM Satellite Radio as it stopped working recently. And this reminded me of one story that reminded me of others....

Back when I was the Electronics Product Specialist for MCCS in 29 Palms, CA, I was installing car stereos on a sound board for display. I was trying to move this huge wall display so I could unplug it before I installed the new stereo. I couldn't get the display to move much, so I stuck my hand back their to unplug it. I got it about half way unplugged, when I went to reach back to finish the job....

I touched the actual metal prongs on the plug! That about zapped the hell out of me. My fingers lacked sensation for a couple of days! My supervisor loved writing up a report about that!

Then, I was sitting on the floor running TV cable to a converter so that all the TVs would display the same image (DVD or Video) It's very appealing as you walk in to the store and see a wall of colorful cartoons!

I was leaning back on my left hand while my right hand was screwing in the cable. All of a sudden, I feel about about 200 lbs on my left hand. I look up in agonizing pain to see a young boot Marine standing on my hand.

I get up with my hand crippled. Turns out I fractured my middle finger while the rest of my hand was swollen and black and blue!

Then, I moved to Yuma. I worked about 60 - 70 hours a week...only taking Sundays off. There was one day that I was having problems with my left eye. It was bothering me. It was dry, my contact kept messing up. Then, I was at home having lunch and took a drink of my soda to see it miss my mouth and fall on my shirt. I was having problems with the left side of my face. I went in the bathroom to find that I could not move the left side of my face. I couldn't blink my eye, the left side of my mouth drooped. I called my mom freaking out. She starts to freak out that I had a stroke. I was 21 at the time. I highly doubted I was having a stroke.

I went to Urgent Care and they didn't know what it was and sent me to an eye doctor. The eye doctor said it was Bells Palsy. I had never heard of it. He said it's usually temporary. They were unsure of the cause but they contributed it to stress and lowered immune system. He said that there was no known fix but that steroids had been shown to possibly help.

Meanwhile, I had to wear a patch over my eye and keep my eye taped down since I couldn't blink. I had to drink out of a straw and eat on the right side of my mouth. I can't describe how miserable it was. I took the steroids religiously. It took about 3 weeks for it all to go away.

A friend of mine in California asked me weekly if I was taking the steroids. When I was better, she asked me if I remembered Kris, a girl we worked with before. I said yes. Well, one side of Kris' face drooped. My friend told me that she got Bells Palsy while she was on a Navy Ship and didn't have steroids available to her, and now she's permanently like that.

Scared the shit out of me! The steroids made me gain mega weight but that's a hell of a lot better than what it could have done if I didn't take them.

Then I moved out to the East and screwed up in the company car.

Practically each job I've had, something has happened. I'm either a clutz, not paying attention or just plain bad luck. Nothing has happened yet with this company that took over a few months ago (at least nothing work related - as I'm reminded of last nights shocking experience). I'm going to keep knocking on wood!

Blog Injury

We were having a great storm tonight. Loud, rolling thunder that mutes everything else around you. Lightning that lights up the sky like Vegas. I love storms! I love rain!

The storm must have been worse than I thought. I was sitting here with my laptop blog surfing when there was a loud BOOM. I swear the earth shook as all the lights went out and I heard this large POP. I thought that my light may have exploded and hit me in the leg as I felt something briefly in my thigh. The lights came on immediately and I realized that my light was still in tact, I was shocked by my laptop.

I jumped up to unplug my laptop from the wall. Meanwhile, my smoke detector is going off and I smell smoke. There is still lightning and thunder surrounding my place while I’m trying to get my smoke detector to stop and figure out where the smell of smoke is coming from.

The smoke detector stopped and I never found what smelled like smoke. I stepped outside to see if something was hit but the lightning was still pouring down, making the hair on my arms stand up and pushed me back inside.

No emergencies. But it scared the shit out of me! I might just be the first person to be injured while blogging. Or at least electrically shocked.